Staying on house arrest isn't

as easy as it sounds.

Steve Harris, Fayette County's

solicitor general, knows it for a fact. For the past month, he has been

testing the computer system that monitors probationers who are sentenced

to house arrest.

Plans are to use the system

more and more for nonviolent offenders to relieve overcrowding at the

county jail, Harris said.

"It's not for everybody,"

Harris points out.

The black box has awakened

Harris at all hours of the night with a piercing siren signaling that

it's time for a random sobriety test. Sunday, it gave him nine sobriety

tests in 24 hours.

Harris also wears the awkward-feeling

ankle monitor that lets the black box know he's nearby, and that takes

a little getting used to.

"I can appreciate the

fact that if you're on this system, it's not a piece of cake," Harris

said.

But for the approximately 55

offenders who have been sentenced to house arrest in Fayette County, one

little slipup could result in a probation violation and send them to jail.

Probation officers monitor readouts from each probationer, checking to

see if the system reported any irregularities.

The black box records whenever

the probationer leaves the range of the black box (about 75 yards), whenever

a sobriety test is failed (along with the corresponding blood alcohol

results) and if the ankle monitor is ever cut off.

Safeguards are built into the

system to prevent anyone from taking the breath test for the probationer.

The "sobrietor" is programmed to recognize the probationer's

voice and several key words must be repeated to authenticate the test.

The sobrietor's infrared sensors

also can tell when your face leaves the nozzle to pass it to someone else.

"So far, I am very pleased

with the quality of the results," Harris said.

The rules about "no alcohol"

are very strict, he added. You can't even take any cold medicine that

has alcohol in it.

"If you violate your probation,

your alternative is the county jail," Harris said.

Harris also has been testing

the house arrest computer system to make sure it doesn't give any "false

positives." One day he used mouthwash right before a test.

The 17-hundredths reading was

so high that Harris was called to do another test a half-hour later, which

showed his breath test back at the normal level.

Many probationers on house

arrest are allowed to leave home and go to work for a certain period of

time, Harris said. But that work shift must be documented by a time card

when the system is first set up by the probation officer, he added.

The monitoring cost is usually

paid for by the offenders, ranging from $7 to $10 a month, although in

some cases the county foots the bill, Harris said. Either way, it saves

the taxpayers money because it's much more expensive to house each person

in the jail, he added.

"This is a way for nonviolent

offenders to suffer a penalty at no cost to the citizens, and he can be

a productive member of society," Harris said. "... If we thought

a person was a threat, the automatic response would be the county jail."

The tactic can be effective,

as Harris recalled a DUI offender who was on house arrest for almost a

full year with the sobriety monitor. The man was gradually released off

house arrest, at first only to attend counseling and later so he could

go back to work.

Other probationers, however,

have proven they can't handle the responsibility of being on house arrest,

Harris added. Those people are sent to jail for the remainder of their

probation sentence, he added.

"It allows people to work

to pay off their fine, their debt to society, and support their family

at the same time," Harris said. "But the defendant has to be

willing to comply with the requirements to stay out of jail."

Harris, for one, has almost had enough of being on house arrest. He originally

planned to test it for 60 days, but he's already decided to cut his sentence

to 30 days.

"I'm ready for a little peace and quiet," he said.